Economic Development

What is meant by Development?

wealth= How much money and possessions we have

quality of life= happiness, how good your life is. It also includes wealth, but also other things that make you happy e.g. health, education, freedom, nice weather

Development= improving peoples quality of life in an area or a country. E.g. digging a new well or building a new school or hospital

Sustainable development= improving peoples quality of life in a way that can continue into the future. it is done without harming the enviroment, not too expensively and so that local people benefit

Development indicators

development is when a country is improving. This can be compared between countires by looking at development indicators:

Economic: (These indicators measure the wealth of a country.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)- total amount of money a country earns in a year

GDP per capita- Average wage of someone in a country

Social:

Birth rate- The number of babies born per thousand of the population per year

Death rate- Number of deaths per thousand of the population each year

infant mortality rate- Number of babies who die under the age of 1 per thousand babies born

People per doctor- Average number of patients for each doctor

Literacy rate- % of adults that can read and write

Life expectancy- The average age a person can expect to live to

Other:

Human Development Index (HDI)- A number calculated using life expectancy, GDP per capita and edicaional attainment. It is used by the United Nations to create an index of countires. Number 1 is Norway and UK is 26.

Disadvantages of the Development Indicators

1. The measures are averages for a country and don't show variations within a country

2. Social indicators are difficult to measure and there is no measure for human rights

3. Economic indicators can be inaccurate for countires where trade is informal(non taxed) as records are often not kept.

How development has been described & mapped in the past

1960s - Countires of the world were split into 1st, 2nd & 3rd world countires. The 1st were rich countries with lots of manufactoring and serivces(e.g. England and USA); 2nd world were communist with lots of manafacturing (e.g. Russia, China, Poland); 3rd world countires were the poorest countires (e.g. Africa). disadvantage that is is disrespectful to countries calling them Third world

1980s- Richer countires were called MEDCs and poorer countires were called LEDCs. The brandt line split the countries with a North/South devide. However, this doesn't show how quickly countires are developing & splitting the world into 2 is too simplistic.

now- All countries are seen to be at different stages of development - LDC, LECD,NIC & MEDC

A country is more likely to be less developed if it has:

Enviromental factors- A poor climate so they can't grow much food, poor farming land e.g. its steep, limited water suply so its harder to produce food. few raw materials so less products to sell

Political factors- An unstable or corrupt government will mean…